The Visible Woman...July 24, 2000

Monday

July 24, 2000

"Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste."

Logan Pearsall Smith, Afterthoughts

don't you think I need this?

too far from the weekend

My dad called this morning.

"Lin, are you coming out here on your way to work?"

"Yes, Dad," I say, wondering what wheel has flown off out there.

"Bring me a tennis ball," he says.

He wanted to soften the blow on a door stop. That's my dad.

Tonight I called him to remind him to try to set the automatic sprinkler to go off tonight at midnight. Later, I'm messing around and the TV news is going and they announce the numbers for watering and, um, it isn't his for tomorrow. Or ours for now on hose-end either for that matter and we are watering away. And I'm thinking I'm wrong and I'm that I should go look in the paper and call Dad and it's late and what if someone reports us. (Like one of the bikers...after all someone vandalized a house down the street and the guy thinks it was the bikers, I'm talking bicycles, not motorbikes or Harleys, and he thinks that because they ask him where he lived exactly at the public hearing.) Then...a little later they announce that THEY ANNOUNCED IT WRONG! Whew. Boy...they might should double check that CRAP.

Yeah, so this guy rang the bell tonight and told us about the vandalism. Someone dumped nails on his drive and egged his house. I'm sure it wasn't the bicycle guys. Of course not. The guy claimed that he was outside and a biker went by on a bike with a cell phone saying, 'Here's his house, he's on the left side.' That sounds far-fetched. On the other hand...why his house? Whoever did it, though, it really makes me mad. Why can't people leave other people's property alone? The city workers like to remind us that we don't own the street. Yeah, and we can't be protected on the property we do own either. And we pay the city and the other taxing authorities a handsome fee to live in it. I was right to not go to that hearing. Would have really made me mad.

My accomplishment for the parents today was, ta-da, hanging pictures. Not my idea of great pictures, but they like them. I gave them a painting our old relative did and another my aunt gave me. We hung all three together. Mine wasn't finished but would have been very similar to my aunt's. Dad's almost aunt (married the man who had been married to his late aunt) died with my painting on the easel. I talked my friend SuRu into helping me. Well, actually she did all the hard work of eyeballing everything. It looks homey there now but won't win any Architectural Digest awards.

I also bought my dad a $10 lamp for his desk. It had an enormous amount of plastic and tape around it. I thought I'd never get it out of there.

FFP cooked some salmon for supper. With a salad, it made a nice dinner. I ate like a pig today. Breakfast taco from the stand in the lobby. Salad, ravioli and bread and La Madeleine. A piece of Russian chocolate. A colleague came back from visiting home which is Russia.

I'm feeling exceedingly boring. Because I am.

The picture is a store display for the Visible Woman kit, for sale on ebay. I bid a couple of times but someone has a high maximum bid, but not high enough...the reserve hasn't been met. So, what the heck. I stole the picture. I don't need it for more than $61. (After all the junk I've sorted in the last couple of months, I should know better, shouldn't I?)